While some voters continue to harbor doubts about the safety of mail-in voting, key Republicans are encouraging members of their party to embrace it to keep pace with Democrats.
"We cannot let anything stop us from making our voices heard," Lackawanna County Commissioner Chris Chermak told a crowd of thousands waiting to hear Former President Donald Trump speak at Riverfront Sports in Scranton on Oct. 9.
"The Democrats, they've been voting every day for weeks. It's time for us to beat them at their own game. We have to make this election too big to rig,” said Chermak, the Republican minority commissioner in a Democratic majority county.
Pennsylvania Department of State daily ballot data, released each morning, showed that as of Oct. 25, 1,252,719 mail-in ballots had been returned statewide. Of them, 748,051, or nearly 60%, came from Democrats, while 377,902 (30%) were from Republicans, and 126,766 (10%) came from other parties or voters with no affiliation.
Act 77 of 2019 created mail-in voting in Pennsylvania. It allows voters to deposit ballots in drop boxes or mail them to their county’s Board of Elections office.
Republican leaders who were formerly opposed to the practice have shifted their stance on mail-in ballots in the months leading up to the Nov. 5 election in hopes it could pay dividends — especially in swing states like Pennsylvania.
Don Peters, Chairman of the Lycoming County Republicans, has warned local party supporters to not get blindsided by Democrats this election. He is not surprised that Republicans are voting more by mail-in ballots than they did in the past. Mail-in ballots can decide elections, he said.
“The Democrats knew right away,” said Peters. “They took advantage of that, and we weren't in favor of Act 77 but unfortunately, you know, ended up that ideology worked against us. And so we're making inroads now to say, ‘Look people, just get your vote in.’”
Why the shift among Republican voters?
There's another strategic reason behind the shift: Some Republicans see mail-in ballots as a way to get single-issue voters to the polls.
During a campaign tour for Former President Donald Trump, Republican Kash Patel spoke about the need to convince single-issue voters to “bank” their vote early. He told listeners to find communities that ideologically lean Republican, but are not likely to vote. The former Chief of Staff to the Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense during Trump’s first term spoke at Kriger Pipeline in Dickson City and then at Post Family Limited Partnership in Luzerne County on Oct. 22.
“Go find 10 people who haven't been spoken to in the last four years … In Georgia, last election cycle, 150,000 registered voting gun owners in the state of Georgia did not vote. What are they doing? If it's happening there, it's happening in Nevada, where I live. It's happening up here in Pennsylvania, same with evangelicals. Look, we got to go out there and reach the single-issue communities, the hunters … the Bitcoin guys, the gamers. President Trump has spoken to all of those communities and offered policies to secure the things they care about,” said Patel.
The former president was not on the tour.
'I'm just talking about raw numbers'
At a pro-gun festival this month in Greeley, Pike County, Colonel Val W. Finnell, Pennsylvania’s Director of Gun Owners of America said mail-in voting was the only way to make Republicans' votes count.
“In Pennsylvania, Democrats use mail in voting three times as often as Republicans do,” said Finnell. “You know what that means, and I'm not talking about cheating, I'm just talking about raw numbers … with a three to one ratio in favor of Democrats. That means the Democrats would have enough votes banked by the end of October to make voter turnout on November 5 irrelevant. And that's why I strongly suggest you get a mail-in ballot.”
Lycoming sees GOP ballot lead
Democrats lead in most counties with returned ballots, but in 26 counties, Republicans make up the majority of returned ballots.
In one of those counties, Lycoming, Republicans lead by 1,063 returned ballots. It’s a majority Republican county with more than 70,000 registered voters, of whom 60% are Republican, according to Director of Elections and Registration Forrest Lehman.
“We're getting many, many ballots back in the mail from the ones we've already sent out in a county our size, that can be four or five, even 600 a day, some days that all have to be received, logged in, you know, and then stored,” said Lehman.
His office is “juggling” a lot of responsibilities: ballot applications, in-person mail-in voters and preparing voting equipment for election day. Lycoming has “already eclipsed” its 2022 mail-in ballot numbers, he said.
As of Oct. 25, Lycoming residents returned nearly 9,000 mail-in ballots to the county office, with 3,507 Democrat ballots and 4,570 Republican ballots. Around 900 ballots are from voters not registered with either major political party.
Controversy in Luzerne County
Not all Republicans are on board.
In Luzerne County, which has seen a string of election-related controversies in recent years, there is lingering skepticism about four drop boxes deployed by the county as mail-in ballot receptacles.
County Manager Romilda Crocamo came under fire last month for refusing to deploy the county’s ballot drop boxes. Her decision was praised by local Republicans like State Rep. Alec Ryncavage.
"With so much at stake in the upcoming election, we cannot afford to leave any room for doubt regarding the integrity of our elections," Ryncavage (R-Plymouth) wrote in a letter to Crocamo.
But state Attorney General Michelle Henry warned Crocamo she could face legal consequences for overriding the county election board's decision to use the boxes, and Crocamo reversed her decision.
So far, more Democrats have returned ballots in Luzerne County, where Republicans now hold the registration majority.
Mail-in and absentee ballots are pouring into drop boxes and the county office, according to Pennsylvania Department of State daily ballot data: As of Oct 25, Luzerne had 11,033 returned Democrat ballots and 4,623 returned Republican ballots.
In his remarks at the recent Trump rally, Chermak cited other problems in Luzerne County as a reason for Republicans to use mail-in ballots.
Luzerne County ran out of paper ballots on Election Day in 2022. The shortage left two voters unable to cast ballots in that election at their respective polling places in Freeland and Shickshinny. The county agreed to a settlement last week with those voters and will pay $30,000 for litigation expenses, according to SpotlightPA.
“We've all seen how unpredictable … the world can be, catastrophic weather events, threats by terrorists, internet failures, even Luzerne County running out of ballot papers at 7:30 in the morning,” said Chermak. “That's why I'm here to request everyone get it … All it is is an insurance policy."
Bucks County in Russian crosshairs?
In another Pennsylvania county mail-in ballots are at the center of a brewing controversy this week.
In Bucks County, one of the closely watched Philadelphia "collar counties," officials quickly condemned a fake video circulating on social media that they said falsely depicted voter fraud related to mail ballots, NPR affiliate WHYY reported.
The incident is under investigation by federal officials, one of whom told USA Today on Friday that it bears the hallmarks of Russian election interference efforts.
Officials: Ballots save money, leave paper trail
Peters, like many Republicans in Pennsylvania, didn’t trust mail-in ballots when they first started. He was worried ballots would get lost in the mail. Now, he sees them as a “money saver” for the Trump campaign. By voting in-person with a mail-in ballot at a county elections office, voters can get their vote in early. Campaigns will not know how a person voted, but they can check whether someone voted and stop sending reminders to vote.
“That takes their name off the mailing list, which saves the campaign a lot of money when you do the math across 67 counties,” said Peters.
Lycoming County's Lehman asserts that mail-in voting is a safe way to vote in Pennsylvania. Every mail ballot in Pennsylvania has a “paper trail” that starts with the mail-in voting application. Registered voters are verified by their name, their birthdate and their voter ID that corresponds to their voter record, according to Lehman.
“And then when they're issued a ballot, it's tied to that record, and the ballot that comes back has to come in an official return envelope with a barcode that's tied to their record,” said Lehman.
Mail-in application deadline looming
Monday was the last day to register to vote in Pennsylvania, but mail-in voting applications close on Tuesday, Oct. 29.
Visit the Pennsylvania Department of State’s mail-in voting registration page to apply. For more information on mail-in and absentee ballots in Pennsylvania, go to DOS’s mail-in and absentee page. DOS also has information on each county’s drop box and mail-in voting locations on its ballot return page.
